Review of Christian St. Croix’s “Rebel Yells (And Other Tales)

Hold up there, Hipster Hank. Put down your PBR and listen for a minute. This isn’t your super-rare bootleg 45 of Etta James playing live in some smoky dive in New Orleans. This isn’t John Lee Hooker, growling his way through another “woman done me wrong” song. And this definitely isn’t some long-haired white boy who just shreds his way through a 12-bar blues chord progression.

I could give you the bio. He gave me his package, after all. (Err… press package. Press.)

But… nah, screw that.

You want the bio? Two options.

Option one: hit his Twitter page. Scroll back as far as you can go and just start reading. It’s all there. His man. His mom. His love-hate relationship with 151. (And if you get far back enough to find tweets about #littlemirmir, prepare to laugh your ass off.)

Option two: start listening to his music. Who he is, is somewhere to the right of the treble clef.

Fair warning, though… prudes and purists need not apply here.

To the purists: dude sounds like he swallowed a bag of smoke-infused sandpaper. If you’re looking for that sweet warble that fucking American Idol has brainwashed people into thinking is music, you’d better keep moving. He’s gonna give you that sound that goes back a few decades, to when men smoked filterless cigarettes (even if he does prefer menthols).

And to the prudes: Christian St. Croix is the first man in the history of music to successfully use the phrase “diamond cutter” in a song. (If you don’t know, hit up UrbanDictionary.com). He doesn’t take the cheap way out and reference “you” as the object of his love/lust/dirty-nasty (I’m looking at you, Melissa Etheridge, you pansy-ass). He’ll name names. And body parts.

This EP only has five tracks, which normally means you don’t get a really good feel for an artist’s range. (Editor’s note: Which is why we normally don’t do EPs, Mr. Smartypants Music Reviewer.) But in five songs, Christian gives you the spectrum:

Marry Him, a catchy upbeat love song that you can hear someone singing on the back porch (well, the back porch in certain areas; this song would make heads explode all across the Deep South).

Take Me, the requisite slow-things-back-down track with the saxophone in the background… you know, THAT kind of saxophone. Oooooh yeah…

The Bully Song, the song with the larger message than “I wanna get your rocks off” (err, not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Buzzy, the “let’s go out and have a good time” tune, complete with mandatory sexual innuendo.

JohnnyJimJack, an a cappella number that gives you the raw, raspy voice without the distraction of the already-stripped-down instrumental accompaniment.

I mean, sure. We all want 12-track masterpieces. But if you put this EP in your mouth and work it around, you’re gonna like it.

Err, wait a second. That came out wrong.

Song you should pay $1 for on iTunes, rather than downloading for free: “Buzzy” is probably the most polished track on the EP, but… okay, no. You gotta check out “Marry Him.” And not just for the “diamond cutter” line. (There’s also ass-slapping, after all.)

Rating: In honor of this well-inked musician, I award this recording… 4 assless-chap tattoos.